Essay on Escape in The Glass Menagerie

In Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, none of the characters are capable of living in the real world. Laura, Amanda, Tom and Jim use various methods to escape the brutalities of life. Laura retreats into a world of glass animals and old gramophone records. Amanda is obsessed with living in her past. Tom escapes into his world of poetry writing and movies. Jim also reverts to his past and remembers the days when he was a hero.

Laura retreats into a world of glass animals and old gramophone records. Even when it appears that Laura is finally overcoming her shyness and hypersensitivity with Jim, she instantly reverts back to playing the Victrola once he tells her he's engaged. She is unable to cope with the truth so she goes back to her fantasy world of records and glass figurines. Laura can only live a brief moment in the real.

Amanda is obsessed with her past as she constantly reminds Tom and Laura of that 'one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain' when she received seventeen gentlemen callers (Williams 32). The reader cannot even be sure that this actually happened. However, it is clear that despite its possible falsity, Amanda has come to believe it. She refuses to acknowledge that her daughter is crippled and refers to her handicap as 'a little defect - hardly noticeable' (Williams 45). Only for brief moments does she ever admit that her daughter is 'crippled' and then she resorts back to denial. She doesn't perceive anything realistically. She believes that this gentleman caller, Jim, is going to be the man to rescue Laura and she hasn't even met him yet. She tells Laura when Laura is nervous about the gentleman caller, 'You couldn't be satisfied with just sitting home', whe...

... middle of paper ...

...he major characters in this play are so warped and their lives so distorted and perverted by fantasies that each is left with only broken fragments of what might have been' (Davis 205).

Click the button above to view the complete essay, speech, term paper, or research paper

Need Writing Help?

Essay on Escape in The Glass Menagerie
- Escape in The Glass Menagerie In Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, none of the characters are capable of living in the real world. Laura, Amanda, Tom and Jim use various methods to escape the brutalities of life. Laura retreats into a world of glass animals and old gramophone records. Amanda is obsessed with living in her past. Tom escapes into his world of poetry writing and movies. Jim also reverts to his past and remembers the days when he was a hero. Laura retreats into a world of glass animals and old gramophone records.... [tags: Glass Menagerie essays]:: 2 Works Cited

Essay on Illusions of Escape in The Glass Menagerie
- Illusions of Escape in The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie gives readers a look into a truly dysfunctional family. At first it could seem as if their lives are anything but normal, but Amanda's "impulse to preserve her single-parent family seems as familiar as the morning newspaper" (Presley 53). The Wingfield's are a typical family just struggling to get by. Their problems, however, stem from their inability to effectively communicate with each other. Instead of talking out their differences, they resort to desperate acts. The desperation that the Wingfields embrace has led them to create illusions in their minds and in turn become deceptive. Aman... [tags: Glass Menagerie essays]:: 7 Works Cited

Dreams of Escape in The Glass Menagerie Essay
- Dreams of Escape in The Glass Menagerie "Anyone can handle a crisis, but day-to-day living is the most trying aspect of life" (Jackson 19). This is especially true in the drama The Glass Menagerie. None of the characters in this tale is willing to or capable of living in the present. Everyday life becomes so mindless and oppressive that each character's dreams and fantasies become more important than reality itself. Through their dreams, Amanda, Tom, Laura, and Jim attempt to transcend reality in order to escape the monotony of life.... [tags: Glass Menagerie essays]:: 2 Works Cited

Essay on Dreams and Escape in The Glass Menagerie
- Dreams and Escape in The Glass Menagerie None of the characters in The Glass Menagerie is capable of living in the present. Everyday life is so oppressive that each character, through their dreams, retreats into a fantasy world. This essay will examine the reality faced by Amanda, Tom, Laura and Jim and probe how, through their dreams, each character attempts to transcend reality. Amanda, having "lost" her husband and having to take care of her two children, namely Tom and Laura, who, in her eyes, are equally lost in their lives, leads a hard life.... [tags: Glass Menagerie essays]:: 8 Works Cited

Escape Mechanisms in The Glass Menagerie Essay
- Escape Mechanisms in The Glass Menagerie In Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, all four members of the Wingfield family have chosen to hide from reality. Amanda tries to relive her past through Laura, and denies anything she does not want to accept. Laura is terrified of the real world, and choses to hide behind her limp, her glass menagerie and the victrola. Tom hides from his reality by going to the movies, writing poetry, and getting drunk. Mr Wingfield hides from his reality by leaving his family and not contacting them after he has done so.... [tags: Glass Menagerie essays]:: 6 Works Cited

Essay on Dreams and Escape in The Glass Menagerie
- Dreams and Escape in The Glass Menagerie The dream of escape is the focal point in the play, The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams. Although each character wants to escape from a different reality, they all feel the need to get away. The father is the most successful in his escape - he leaves the family and doesn't look back. Laura, Amanda, Tom, and Jim, are not as fortunate, they seem to be stuck throughout the play. Jim seems to be the only one with a real chance at breaking away from his reality.... [tags: Glass Menagerie essays]:: 3 Works Cited

Futile Dreams of Escape in The Glass Menagerie Essay
- Futile Dreams of Escape in The Glass Menagerie "I have always been more interested in creating a character that contains something crippled. I think nearly all of us have some kind of defect, anyway, and I suppose I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge on hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person" (Rasky 134). This statement of Tennessee Williams supports the idea that he incorporates something crippled into all his major characters. In his play, The Glass Menagerie, Williams portrays a crippling mother and child relationship.... [tags: Glass Menagerie essays]:: 5 Works Cited

Essay on the Illusion of Escape in The Glass Menagerie
- The Illusion of Escape in The Glass Menagerie In The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, the characters exhibit a state of delusion that originates from their dissatisfaction with their lives. Tom seeks adventure in the movies. Amanda reminisces often about her days as a Southern Belle. Laura sits in a dream world with her glass collection, and Jim basks in the praises of his high school glory. In their respective ways, they demonstrate their restlessness. The quotation from Thoreau, "The mass of men lead lives of the quiet desperation," applies to the characters in that they are all unhappy, but take no action to improve their situation in any significant way.... [tags: Glass Menagerie essays]:: 3 Works Cited

Essay on Tom's Escape in The Glass Menagerie
- Tom's Escape in The Glass Menagerie In Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, each member of the Wingfield family has their own fantasy world in which they indulge themselves. Tom escaped temporarily from the fantasy world of Amanda and Laura by hanging out on the fire escape. Suffocating both emotionally and spiritually, Tom eventually sought a more permanent form of escape. Tom supports his family despite his unhappiness of his world. He tries to please Amanda by being the sole supporter, but only gets rewarded by Amanda's constant nagging and suspicion. Eventually Tom finds himself more like his father as he seeks adventure in the movies and hangs out on the fire es... [tags: Glass Menagerie essays]:: 2 Works Cited

Essay on the Theme of Escape in The Glass Menagerie
- The Theme of Escape in The Glass Menagerie The Glass Menagerie, a play by Tennessee Williams, is set in the apartment of the Wingfield family, housing Amanda Wingfield and her two children Tom and Laura. The father left many years ago, and is only represented by a picture on the living-room wall. The small, dingy apartment creates a desperate, monotonous feeling in the reader. None of the Wingfields has any desire to stay in the apartment, but their lack of finances makes it impossible to move.... [tags: Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams essays]:: 3 Works Cited